Blog - Got Mead? The Largest Mead Resource on the Web

5-5-26 Tonight we're hanging with Tony Qualls. Tony is meadmaker/owner of Manic Meadery and brewer/owner of Gnosis Brewing. And he puts on the Sugarbelt Mead Festival every year. A busy guy! Tony is not just a meadery owner, he's also a musician. He toured in the band Groovatron for 12 years, doing over 1500 shows in 12 years (makes me tired just thinking about all that travel!). In April 2024, Tony and the gang opened Gnosis Brewing, also in Merrillville, Indiana. Founded by Tony, Keith, Eric, Adam, and Brandon, the brewery embodies an unending quest for beer perfection, continually evolving to delight both new craft beer enthusiasts and seasoned connoisseurs. With a commitment to quality over quantity, Gnosis Brewing rigorously tests each beer recipe through multiple batches and trials before it reaches the customer. The brewery aims to push the boundaries of traditional brewing, ensuring that every release meets their high standards of excellence. Tony is a lifelong entrepreneur, having run a vinyl record company, painting company and a bunch of other businesses. Plus he's a skilled tradesman in welding and carpentry (that would help with build out!). Tony has been married to his lovely wife Vanessa for 12 years, and they have two kids. Not to sit on his laurels, Tony plans to pursue law school and recording backlogs of musical material while running his meadery (getting tired again, lol). He likes to mountain bike and ride his motorcycle in his free time (he has free time?). Tony co-founded Manic Meadery with Keith Cantwell in 2018 in Crown Point, Indiana. Manic is a small batch meadery, and they also do wine and cider. They've gotten a lot of interest in their sweet dessert meads using whole fruit and often multiple adjuncts. Tony is also a BJCP mead judge, and holder of Mazer Cup awards for both home and commercial mead. The plans for Manic in 2020 include increasing self distribution, expanding their production space, and organizing a mead-only festival, the Sugarbelt Mead Fest.   To listen live, you can find us on Youtube, Twitch, X (Twitter), and Facebook on the Gotmead Page. On our new platform, chat is part of the podcast! Just comment from wherever you are watching, and we'll see it!! If you'd like to call in, we can get you a link to come on! Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/meadwench YouTube: YouTube: https://m.youtube.com/@Gotmead X(Twitter): https://x.com/RealGotMead Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/GotMead Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/GotMead JOIN CHAT ON DISCORD: https://discord.gg/zEKNujQTtM Listen in! This player will show the latest episode: Sponsor: Look no further than Honnibrook Craft Meadery in Castle Rock, Colorado, for your go-to destination for wonderful, light, and refreshing mead! We have 20 meads on tap and four seasonal mead slushees.  Go to honnibrook.com for review our tap list, upcoming events and to order online! If you want to ask your mead making questions, you can send us a question via email, join to ask a question on the show, or via X @realGotMead and we'll tackle it online! The show runs from 9PM EDT/6PM PDT (United States) for about 2 hours every other Tuesday starting Jan 13, 2026. To join live, you can use this link, and here are instructions on how to join in. Once you enter the waiting room, we get a notification and will bring you in! Upcoming Shows Show links and notes Let There Be Melomels by Rob Ratliff The Big Book of Mead Recipes by Rob Ratliff Let There Be Session Meads by Rob Ratliff Upcoming Events May 6 - Wild Blossom Meadery, Chicago, IL - Optimo Swing-Jazz May 7 - DiFrancesco Meadery, Wrightsville, PA - Mead and Meditation May 7 - Vahalla Meadery - Bozeman, MT - Acoustic Jam party May 7 - Dancing Skeleton Meadery, Sapulpa, OK - Trivia Night May 9 - Brimminghorn Meadery, Seaford, DE - US Wrestling Justice May 12 - Honeytree Meadery, Nashville, TN - Writers Night and Open Mic May 13 - The Mead Hall, Charles, MO - Acoustic Jam May 14 - Nucleus Mead, Linesville, PA  - Mead and Read May 14 - Vahalla Meadery - Bozeman, MT - Acoustic Jam party May 16 - Adesanya Brewery, Grandville, MI - Mead Samples with A New Image Salon May 17 - Foxes Den Meadery, Minooka, IL - Rock the PHight Kickoff Fundraiser at Papa Magoos Bar and Grill May 21 - Standard Meadery, Villa Park, IL - After Hours Networking May 21 - Vahalla Meadery, Bozeman, MT - Acoustic Jam May 22 - Manic Meadery, Crown Point, IN - Paint and Drink: Forest Fairy May 24 - Clear Skies Meadery, Rockville, MD - Acoustic music with Mike Rocke May 30 - McAlpine Meadery, Beach City, OH - 30 mile Bike Ride May 30 - Slash-o-Meadery, Nacogdoches, TX - Live Music with Dan McMahon May 30 - Hive Mind Mead and Brew Co., Caldicot, UK - It's CANDY Disco night with Tandoori G May 31 - Bumbling Fools Mead, Minneapolis, MN - Mead Making Class May 31 - Wild Blossom Meadery, Chicago, IL - Grown-Up Book Fair May 31 - Helderberg Meadworks, Troy, NY - Mead and Read - the book 'The Corpse Flower' and an Artist Mead Up June 6 - The Ferm Meadery, Houston, TX - Fire NR Bones live music You can buy mead online at https://shopmeads.com

3-31-20 We're back from a break that *should* have been because of MeadCon and Mazer Cup, but sadly we did not get to celebrate either of those events because of postponements. Make sure you're online or doing pickups to #buymead! We are tickled to have Pete Bakulic back tonight, it's been quite a while since we've been able to get him on the show. If you don't know of Pete, either you're new to the mead scene, or you've been hiding under a rock! Pete is President of the Mazer Cup International and a member of the American Mead Makers Association Home Governing Committee. He's been making mead for 40 plus years now, and does it *very* well. Pete is a regular poster and commenter on several mead groups on Facebook, and is a moderator on GotMead and Modern Mead Makers there. He's also an admin here on the GotMead forums, and one of our most prolific posters. Pete was the first person on GotMead, wayyyy back in the early days (last century!), to talk about oaking mead during and after fermentation, also to talk about fermentation tannins, filtering (Enolmatic), lees exposure, blending different honeys in mead, combining dark honey and light honey for different characters and flavors in mead, and using a lees stirrer to blend your honey completely into the must. He broke a lot of ground on the forums, and helped countless mead makers to learn to make better mead. And he's a multiple award winning mead maker, including the first meadmaker to win Best of Show at the California State Fair Homebrew competition with an oaked sweet traditional Orange Blossom Mead in 2006. So join us tonight to talk mead with Pete! Join us on the live chat and don't be afraid to call in if you want to! This player will show the most recent show, and when we're live, will play the live feed. If you are calling in, please turn off the player sound, so we don't get feedback.[break] [break]Click here to see a playable list of all our episodes! If you want to ask your mead making questions, you can call us at 803-443-MEAD (6323) or send us a question via email, or via Twitter @GotmeadNow and we'll tackle it online! 9PM EDT/6PM PDT Join us on live chat during the show Bring your questions and your mead, and let's talk mead! You can call us at 803-443-MEAD (6323), or Skype us at meadwench (please friend me first and say you're a listener, I get tons of Skype spam), or tweet to @gotmeadnow. Coming up: April 7 - Ken Schramm Show links and notes Honeybee: Lessons from an Accidental Beekeeper by C. Marina Marchese The Honey Connoisseur by C. Marina Marchese and Kim Flottum National Honey Board Mead Crafter Compeitition Penn Herb Co San Francisco Herbs Wellcome Mead: 105 Mead Recipes from the 17th and 18th Century English Receipt Books at the Wellcome Library by Laura Angotti Cider and Perry in Britain to 1700: A Collection of Material from Primary and Selected Secondary Sources by Laura Angotti Let There Be Melomels by Rob Ratliff The Big Book of Mead Recipes by Rob Ratliff Upcoming Events July 22-25 Mazer Cup International, Broomfield, CO September 26-28 AMMA MeadCon, Broomfield, CO Due to the pandemic, most meaderies cannot have events or open their taprooms, and are offering their mead via online and pickup service. You can find an ongoing list at https://gotmead.com/meaderies/support-meaderies-during-coronavirus-where-to-get-mead-online-and-pickup/ Visit our mead directory at https://gotmead.com/commercial-mead/ Got an event you’d like us to mention on GotMead Live? Send us an email at [email protected] and tell us about it!

5-7-19 We are talking with Greg Heller-LaBelle, Vice President of the American Mead Makers Association, and co-owner of The Colony Meadery in Bethlehem, PA. Greg is coming on to tell us all about the debut of MeadCon East, the AMMA conference, that will be held in Pennsylvania, September 5-7, 2019.[break] After 3 years of holding the MeadCon in Broomfield, CO alongside the Mazer Cup International, the AMMA has decided to host a second conference on the other side of the country. This event, being in the first year, is as yet small, but is expected to grow each year.[break] Greg himself is a longtime homebrewer (from wayy back in college). He eventually moved back to his birthplace in Bethlehem, PA. He is a craft beer writer, and when he got back to his hometown, he revived the Lehigh Valley Brewing, a fancy name for a group of guys who got together monthly to share dusty beers they'd collected and stored. (Because beer, of course!). At one of those meetings, this guy, Mike Manning brought along a homemade mead. And boy was it good! Greg, having been deep in the beer culture, saw the writing on the wall that the mead world was going to take off, and spent the next couple months hounding this stranger to go into business with him, and The Colony Meadery was born! We're going to talk Meadcon, mead, and building and running a meadery with Greg tonight, join us! [break]Click the chat link to join us  in the live conversation during the show. This player will show the most recent show, and when we're live, will play the live feed. If you are calling in, please turn off the player sound, so we don't get feedback.[break] [break]Click here to see a playable list of all our episodes! If you want to ask your mead making questions, you can call us at 803-443-MEAD (6323) or send us a question via email, or via Twitter @GotmeadNow and we'll tackle it online! 9PM EDT/6PM PDT Join us on live chat during the show Bring your questions and your mead, and let's talk mead! You can call us at 803-443-MEAD (6323), or Skype us at meadwench (please friend me first and say you're a listener, I get tons of Skype spam), or tweet to @gotmeadnow. Show links and notes Lars Blog - Norwegian yeast Beersmith software Designing Great Beers by Ray Daniels Let There Be Melomels by Rob Ratliff The Big Book of Mead Recipes by Rob Ratliff Upcoming Events May 9 - The Royce Detroit - The Compleat Introduction to Mead with Ken Schramm May 12 - Orchid Cellar Winery - Mother's Day: Sweet and Succulents May 17 - Rushford Meadery and Winery - Winery Comedy Tour May 18-19 Orchid Cellars Meadery - Wine in the Woods - Maryland May 19 - Starrlight Meadery - Reiki I Certification class May 20-22 - Wye Valley Meadery - London Wine Fair May 25 - Honeygirl Meadery - Mead and (Bee)sign - paint beehives at Buddha Bee Apiary May 24-25 - Wild Blossom Meadery and Winery - Singles Mingle Event May 25-26 - Linganore Winery - Caribbean Wine and Music Festival June 1 - Starrlight Meadery - Spirits of Summer Festival Jun 1 - Honeymoon Meads - Music - Giant's Causeway June 1 - Warped Pours II - Pour Harder - Metro South Homebrew League Homebrew Festival June 7-9 Brimming Horn Meadery - 2nd Annual 'Party Like its 793 Viking Festival June 8 - Woodstone Creek Artisan Winery and Distillery - Saturday Sips, Wine, Mead, Spirits (wine, mead, port and distilled spirits) June 27 - Brother's Drake Mead - The Bee's Meads at the Conservatory July 27 - Orcas Island Cider and Mead Festival Aug 31 - New Day Craft Mead - Meadful Things and Outciders Festival Got an event you’d like us to mention on GotMead Live? Send us an email at [email protected] and tell us about it!